Before the Open (Mar 18)

Good morning. Happy Wednesday. Happy Fed Day.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mixed. China rallied 2.1%, followed by Taiwan (up 1.2%) and Hong Kong (up 0.9%). New Zealand dropped 1%, followed by Indonesia (down 0.5%) and India (down 0.4%). Europe is currently mixed. Greece is down 4.2%, followed by Austria and Italy (down 0.9%) and Germany (down 0.8%). Russia is up 1.2%, followed by Norway (up 0.8%) and London and Switzerland (up 0.6%). Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap down open for the cash market.

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The dollar is flat. Oil is down; copper is down. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are up.
Yesterday the market was weak early but then finished strong. The indexes closed mixed, with the small caps moving up and the large caps moving down. The small caps have much less exposure to the negative effects of the strong dollar, hence their out-performance lately.
Today is Fed Day. There are no expectations rates will be raised today, but there a possibility their statement suggests rates are going to be raised sooner rather than later. Some want rates raised now…others say it’s better to be safe than sorry, and with the dollar being so strong, the Fed could wait until 2016 to raise. We’ll see. Last meeting the market got hit hard after the Fed statement was released, but then recovered most of the losses the next day.
The Fed can jerk prices around in the near term, but it rarely changes the overall picture. Too bad the overall picture is somewhat neutral. We got a big February rally that put the indexes at new highs. Then 50 – 62% of the gains were given back. And now about 50% of the correction has been recovered. The S&P is in no-man’s land and not very close to strong support or resistance. No big bets here. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Ryerson (RYI +4.24%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Overweight’ at JPMorgan Chase.
Navistar (NAV -0.03%) was downgraded to ‘Underweight’ from ‘Equal Weight’ at Morgan Stanley.
USG (USG -0.52%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Outperform’ at RW Baird.
Macerich (MAC -3.47%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral’ at UBS.
Jefferies downgraded Salix Pharmaceuticals (SLXP -0.16%) to a ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ with a $173 price target.
FedEx (FDX -0.91%) reported Q3 EPS of $2.01, higher than consensus of $1.87.
General Mills (GIS -0.69%) reported Q3 EPS of 70 cents, better than consensus of 67 cents.
GIC Private Limited reported a 5.02% passive stake in Dollar General (DG -0.90%) .
Quiksilver (ZQK +3.66%) reported a Q1 continuing operating EPS loss of -11 cents, a smaller loss than consensus of -14 cents, but then lowered guidance on fiscal 2015 revenue estimate to $1.38 billion to $1.45 billion, below consensus of $1.49 billion.
Adobe (ADBE +1.70%) fell over 3% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 adjusted EPS of 44 cents, higher than consensus of 39 cents, but then lowered guidance on Q2 EPS to 41 cents to 47 cents, less than consensus of 48 cents.
Oracle (ORCL -1.24%) climbed nearly 2% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 EPS of 68 cents, right on consensus, but said that cloud bookings are now growing by 100% per year.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
7:00 MBA Mortgage Applications
10:30 EIA Petroleum Inventories
2:00 PM FOMC Announcement
2:00 PM FOMC Forecast
2:00 PM Chairman Press Conference
Notable earnings before today’s open: ATU, EJ, EVLV, FDX, GIS, LEJU
Notable earnings after today’s close: CLC, CTAS, GES, GOMO, JBL, JUNO, MLHR, RENN, SCVL, SLW, TLYS, WSM
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers